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Mulroney’s legal bill to cost taxpayers $2M

Brian Mulroney's six days of testimony have left taxpayers on the hook for $2 million in legal fees.

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney shakes hands with inquiry counsel Richard Wolson at the end of his sixth day of testimony on May 20, 2009. (CHRIS WATTIE / REUTERS)

By Richard J. BrennanLes WhittingtonOttawa Bureau

Thu., May 21, 2009

OTTAWA–Brian Mulroney's six days of testimony have left taxpayers on the hook for $2 million in legal fees.

The $2 million bill, which comes on top of the estimated $14 million cost to taxpayers of the Oliphant inquiry, falls under a federal government policy that provides for the payment of former office holders' legal costs.

It had been assumed that Mulroney was paying his own lawyers' fees because he did not apply to Justice Jeffrey Oliphant for financial assistance at the hearings probing Mulroney's dealings with businessman Karlheinz Schreiber.

But Myriam Massabki, a spokesperson for the Privy Council Office, confirmed yesterday that Mulroney's legal costs are covered under a Treasury Board program designed to help former prime ministers and other senior government officials who wind up in legal proceedings.

She said $800,000 has been earmarked for Mulroney's legal expenses in 2008-09, the fiscal year that just ended, with another $1.25 million set aside for similar costs in the current year.

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New Democrat MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) said "Canadians should be outraged at the prospect ... of having to pay for Mulroney's defence at an inquiry that he himself demanded take place.

"This is wrong on so many levels," said Martin, a member of the parliamentary ethics committee that also probed Mulroney's dealings with Schreiber in 2007.

Taxpayers also had to foot the bill when Mulroney received $2.1 million to cover his legal fees in a lawsuit he launched against the federal government in 1995 as a result of allegations made against him in the Airbus affair. The settlement was reached in January 1997.

Mulroney spokesperson Robin Sears declined comment on the legal fees.

The former prime minister may yet wind up out of pocket for some of his legal expenses, Guy Pratte, lead counsel for Mulroney, told The Canadian Press.

Mulroney, 70, yesterday finished six days of testimony, during which he fielded hundreds of questions about the $225,000 cash he says he received from Schreiber in 1993-94.

"The probing questions, I thought, were appropriate and didn't either bother me or offend me in any way," Mulroney said.

Schreiber says he paid Mulroney $300,000 to lobby on behalf of a project to have German-designed military vehicles built in Canada. But Mulroney, who has acknowledged that doing so would have run counter to ethics standards for public officials, insists his mandate from Schreiber was to promote the sale of vehicles made by Thyssen AG of Germany internationally.

Mulroney testified that over several years he used his high-level contacts in China, Russia, France and other countries to feel out the possibility of having the United Nations buy the Thyssen military vehicles.

But he offered little documented evidence that he worked internationally on behalf of Thyssen.

Yesterday, Schreiber lawyer Richard Auger asked Mulroney if he had any correspondence – to him or from him – to support his story that he went to various countries to fulfil his arrangement with Schreiber to promote Thyssen.

"I don't know. It would be a long time ago," Mulroney said, adding if such letters did exist they would have been given to the inquiry.

Auger questioned Mulroney about a Nov. 5, 2007 email from the former prime minister's then-spokesperson, Luc Lavoie, to the Star stating Mulroney received $300,000 from Schreiber to "get Mr. Mulroney's help in building a light armoured troop carrier factory for Thyssen, a major German corporation, in the region of Montreal and to launch a chain of pasta restaurants in North America."

Lavoie's email contradicted Mulroney's testimony that he only received $225,000 to work for Schreiber internationally to promote Thyssen and that the pasta project was something not discussed with Schreiber until 1998. It also contradicted Mulroney's position that the pasta project was only peripheral to his dealings with the businessman.

Mulroney told the inquiry Lavoie had "unintentionally" misinformed the Star, and said Lavoie never consulted him on the email.

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